What Star Trek Ep/Movie Did you Watch Today?

[Raw_Deal]

Well, I guess I'm gonna make my very first negative post about Voyager , cause I agreed on Workforce I mean I liked it, but that story was very short, very small for a double episode. And yep, Beneath the Surface was much better ( and no, not cause of Daniel's arms... ... Fine, those arms had some part in the quality of the episode )

Not to mention the whole Sam/Jack stuff...

<-- *Hopeless shipper*

[Mr.MacGadget]

Not to mention the whole Sam/Jack stuff...

<-- *Hopeless shipper*

I know! That was so sweet, especially when Sam put her head onto his shoulders.

[nx01a]

ENT: Cease Fire

I'm continuing the rewatch of my B List ENT episodes. Shran, Soval, Andorian and Vulcan ships... It's amazing to see

Spoiler:

turn into

Spoiler:

and it bodes well for humanity's place in creating the Federation.
'Cease Fire' is a solid episode, but it doesn't make my A List. It's what quality filler/arc-lite episodes should be.

Well, now we know that 1 Vulcan ship = 1.5 Andorian ships.

[Arga]

Just finished watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "The Nagus".

I rememer seeing it when I was younger, and finding it quite boring! I wonder if now I'd see some interest in it...

[Alan]

I rememer seeing it when I was younger, and finding it quite boring! I wonder if now I'd see some interest in it...

I remember how much I feared episodes focusing entirely on the Ferengi. Those fears were for nothing. I found them entertaining and humorous.

[Arga]

I remember how much I feared episodes focusing entirely on the Ferengi. Those fears were for nothing. I found them entertaining and humorous.

Yes, Ferengi episodes were not my cup of tea, (like the Lwuxanna Troy episodes)... However, one episode I really loved with the Ferengi is when they came back to Earth in the past, as the "Roswell aliens". And in this episode (I think called "little green men") i enjoyed the fact they showed where was their universal translator. DS9 was sometimes good to show that aliens didn't really speak in English.

[Alan]

Yes, Ferengi episodes were not my cup of tea, (like the Lwuxanna Troy episodes)... However, one episode I really loved with the Ferengi is when they came back to Earth in the past, as the "Roswell aliens". And in this episode (I think called "little green men") i enjoyed the fact they showed where was their universal translator. DS9 was sometimes good to show that aliens didn't really speak in English.

Ah, Little Green Men. Yes, I enjoyed that one particularly. It was very clever and very funny story telling. I always enjoyed the banter between the main three Ferengi and, especially that between Quark and Odo.

[General Jumper One]

It's hard being green...

[DigiFluid]

VOY 7.18 "Human Error"
Eh. Largely forgettable, yet another Seven-centric episode. Nice to see Jeri Ryan more dressed down though. And the "hair" moment in Engineering was a laugh.


VOY 7.19 "Q2"
I've made it pretty clear that, as a rule, I really don't like Q episodes outside of TNG. But with that said, John de Lancie's son gives a great performance here as Q's son. Turning Engineering into a nightclub was a laugh, and I did like the rapport he developed with Icheb ("Itchy" and "Q-Ball" ) And they did a nice recycle of the red judge robes near the end.

Oh and I see young Q blew a hole in the shuttle bay door to get the Flyer out. That's the second time that's happened now. How many spare garage doors are we to believe a ship like Voyager keeps in storage?


VOY 7.20 "Author, Author"
It's funny....the crew in the holo-novel are supposed to be exaggerated charicatures of of the Voyager crew, and they're supposed to be offensive and whatnot. But um, they're not really that far off the mark--especially the Janeway one.

Unfortunately I don't think the stereotypes ended with with the holo-simulation. Good lord, could Harry's parents have been anymore stereotypically Asian? I'm not Asian myself, but even I was offended by that particular portrayal. For crying out loud, all they needed was to be carrying cameras and taking shots of everything in sight, and the stereotype would have been complete

This episode has another line that makes me wonder why this show never had a continuity advisor of any kind. The crew compliment given in Workforce Part II was 136 (which it self was an upward revision of 7), while in this one it's stated that the crew compliment is 146. Not really sure where those extra 10(+7+) crew members came from.


VOY 7.21 "Friendship One"
Funniest part of the episode....Neelix and Chakotay betting on whether Paris or Torres would win in the argument

I loved seeing Joe Carey again too. Really a shame that they finally gave him a little bit of development (that he has at least one kid) in the episode where they kill him off. Talk about a bum rap for a character too: he gets shafted from the Chief Engineer position he's next in line for in favour of some rebel, he disappears from engineering for like six years, and then is brought back in this one episode just a few weeks from when the ship gets home. Poor guy.

They glossed way too quickly over his death too, IMO. Murdering him in cold blood was one of the most startling and shocking things that this series ever did. But it was forgotten about just a couple of minutes later, instead of dealt with in any meaningful way. Maybe I'm just an ass, but if I was in command and that had happened to someone under me, I'd start bombarding the encampments on the surface until the hostages were returned. No negotiating with terrorists, no mercy for ruthless murderers. I don't even like this show, and I was mad when he was killed.

I like the general story of this though. It's really something to see a world that's been reduced to ashes and Beneath the Planet of the Apes mutants because of a probe that was sent out centuries ago. Very sad, very interesting.

[Raw_Deal]

I know! That was so sweet, especially when Sam put her head onto his shoulders.

Exactly

DS9 - A Time to Stand.

[DigiFluid]

VOY 7.22 "Natural Law"
Oop, destroying one more shuttle. For old times' sake Some lovely VFX, and hey, very young Autumn Reeser!

Bit of a bore though. Almost fell asleep a few times while watching this one. Kind of a strange waste of an episode to do so near to the end of the series.


VOY 7.23 "Homestead"
Well um..it started back in about season 5, but this episode made it official: Voyager is no longer adhering to the Stardate system established in TNG and followed through all of it and DS9. Traditionally, a Stardate of 54868 would be toward the end of the year, in keeping in line with it being near the end of the season as well. But we open here on the 315th anniversary of First Contact, which would place the beginning of this episode on April 5, 2378.

Ultimately though this is absolutely one of the highlights of the later seasons of the show. It's here that it becomes fully clear and apparent that the show is coming to an end. As much as he could be annoying, it was rather sad to see Neelix leave the ship after all this time. For seven years he'd made it his home, and after all that time he decides he'd rather settle here than continue with them to Earth.

I find it...a little questionable that Neelix couldn't find a home until he was back amongst his own people. There's something vaguely racially insensitive about that as a story element. But still, it's well-executed and sad to see Neelix's departure from the ship.


VOY 7.24 "Renaissance Man"
Oh man, lame Sontaran knockoffs again. Rather poor choice for a series penultimate episode IMO.


VOY 7.25-26 "Endgame"
A lot of stuff in this finale is....really unnecessarily out of left field. Since when are Seven and Tuvok dating? Since when is Tuvok mentally ill? Since when are Seven and Neelix and such sociable terms that they play long-distance board games? It's also more than a little puzzling that Seven is the one to detect the smatttering of apparent wormholes, but doesn't recognize that they're Borg transwarp tunnels.

The first half of this episode is really, really slow. I'd totally forgotten just how slow it really was. Future sequences that end up meaning nothing, various story tangents (in the paragraph above) that don't make a whole lot of sense, the Borg being utterly illogical when they first see Voyager, and for some reason the future Federation is still using the same old transporters that Voyager was using 30 years prior.

Two things I'll say in defense of this episode; the first is regarding VFX. And honestly, they're terrific. Though the animation of armour deploying on the ships could've used a bit of fine-tuning, in the end it looked really nice. The nebula looked great, and the Borg transwarp hub, holy cow. So good looking.

I'll also comment on how terrific it was to see Alice Krige return to the role of the Borg Queen for the series finale here too. I don't have anything unkind to say about Susanna Thompson's Queen in her appearances, but to bring Krige back after her last appearance in First Contact is a great continuity touch that was very welcome.

The story here is just so full of holes that the whole thing just sinks as a result. When the Queen first saw Voyager in the nebula, there was zero reason for her not to order either the destruction or assimilation of the ship. End of story.

And then there's the whole time travel angle.... Ignoring for a moment that time-travelling Adm. Janeway creates a paradox of monumental proportions, it also presents other problems. On numerous occasions throughout this series, we've been subject to hearing all about the Temporal Prime Directive. On a few occasions, we've seen the temporal authorities in the future intervening whenever someone tries to futz with the timeline. So where is Captain Braxton and/or the Relativity (or any other temporal authority) to stop this from happening? Even within this show's own continuity, the premise of this episode is so profoundly flawed as to be wholly unbelievable.

I also despise how badly neutered the Borg are portrayed as in this episode. This is something Voyager was especially bad at throughout its entire run, but man did they ever hit it out of the park here. Why didn't they destroy/assimilate Voyager in the nebula at the beginning? Why the heck would the Queen, apparently the embodiment of the entire Collective's will, tell Seven that she was "her favourite"? That doesn't make even the remotest kind of sense!! And what about the damn Transwarp apertures?! If there's one that's right on Earth's doorstep, why have the Borg only sent single Cubes the slow way across Federation territory to Earth until now? And and and....WHY DOES THE QUEEN HAVE NO UNDERSTANDING OF TEMPORAL MECHANICS?! She tells Adm. Janeway that if Voyager is destroyed nothing she did will matter--despite the obvious fact that the timeline had already been altered! *headdesk*

Yet again, Janeway proves herself utterly incompetent of command in any capacity. She originally spends 23 years getting the ship home, okay that's fine. But she can't handle that she got the job done and decides she has to mess with history to do it faster. Then fails to brief herself on the existence of the Transwarp Hub.

Upon seeing it, present-Janeway, instead of finishing the mission and GOING HOME, she orders the ship to leave the damn nebula to reconsider things. WHAT. THE. FRAK. And when she finally does go on to continue with the mission, she decides that the best possible time to go ahead with it....is when her Chief Engineer is in labour and the ship's pilot is the father. Smooth. Smooth. Ugh.

Until Enemy at the Gate came along, I was quite happy to call this episode the worst series finale in science fiction television history. And white EatG edges out, it's only marginally. What horrid, horrid finale episode.



Post-series thoughts to follow.

[DigiFluid]

Voyager: Post-Series Thoughts

Numbers
I guess I'll start with something simple and comparatively innocuous: numbers. Wow, this show really needed someone to keep track of continuity in terms of numbers.

Not counting the first Delta Flyer, no fewer than 16 shuttles were destroyed over the course of the series. Plus the one intact (non-DF) shuttle seen toward the end of the series, that means there's been 17 shuttlecraft aboard ship over the run of the series. That's....not even remotely possible, given the size of the shuttlebay vs. the size of the shuttles when they fly out of it. And since power reserves were an omnipresent issue throughout the series, it's hard to fathom that they built new shuttles regularly--particularly given the undertaking it was to build the Delta Flyer.

There's also the photon torpedo issue. Early on in the show (The Cloud, to be specific), Chakotay said that they'd have to be careful about using them, as they only had 38. By the end of the series--not counting funerals or the transphasic torpedoes in the finale--they had fired 81 over the course of the show. That's some pretty impressive math.

There were also sizeable issues with the crew compliment as well. Several times throughout the run of the show, it was stated or suggested that they'd only lost a few people in all their travels. By my count over the run of the series, 51 people had lost their lives on Janeway's watch. Not an insignificant number, given that they started out with only 143 on ship. There were also a number of instances of inexplicable growths in ship population--sometimes jumping up by as many as 10 at a time, so that the final crew compliment was in the neighbourhood of 150 (144, to be exact). But none of this excuses just how many people died.

Writing
Moving on from math: writing. It's nothing short of astonishing how mediocre and pedantic the writing of this series was. At an overview....with only a few exceptions, the first three seasons of the show are almost entirely forgettable. There are a handful of gems, but you can literally count them on one hand vs. the sheer number of episodes.

Season 4 was a dramatic improvement. Despite the unfortunate removal of Jennifer Lien for the obvious sex appeal of Jeri Ryan, the show-runners lucked out in a way that I don't think any of them were actually expecting to happen: Jeri Ryan can actually act. This interesting new dimension to the show was played out well almost entirely because of her acting chops, and set against the best run of episodes in the series.

Unfortunately from there it was all downhill. Season 5 was stuffed full of so many bad episodes that it's a wonder I didn't quit my re-watch partway through. Season 6 was a marginal improvement, but with a caveat....its improvement elevated it from offensively bad to "boring" and "hard to stay awake through". And finally the embarassing last year of the show, where it got so bad there were times when I wondered if the writers had deliberately taken it upon themselves to do a show as bad as they possibly could.

Characters
The characters on this show....are difficult for me to encapsulate in a single statement or paragraph. So I think instead I'll approach each of them individually to give thoughts on their contributions to the series from beginning to end, and how I feel about each of them.

Harry Kim: About as useful as a screen door on a submarine. When the show started, the writers really created a golden opportunity for themselves with this character, a new officer so green he glowed in the dark. The possibilities of how they could develop him were literally endless; they could turn him into an upstanding tactical officer or command, or whatever else. They could have broken him in some way so he had to live with shattered dreams, or they could've done than and then had him redeem himself later. But no. After seven years he was still radioactive green, incapable of even the most basic of tasks. Never mind the fact that Janeway didn't promote him once in seven years--he never did anything to merit a promotion.

Tom Paris: I think Paris is a character that they approached wrong right from the beginning, and that as a result they really had trouble figuring out what to do with him for quite a while. Consider that he was a convict in a penal colony at the show's beginning; that suggests a whole plethora of interesting ideas. Instead he's neutered into a good misunderstood guy pretty much before the pilot had even ended. Then he spent a couple seasons floundering around without much to do beyond driving the ship, until they decided that he would suddenly be obsessed with our period in history for no particular reason. And when that wasn't bearing any useful fruit, they decided to pair him off with another of the main cast--even though no woman would ever tolerate his selfish BS.

B'Elanna Torres: This is a character that just makes me shake my head in disgust at the writing staff. Did they even have the foggiest idea what it was to be Klingon? I think not, because 98% of the time this character was just written to be a rageaholic. That's not what Klingons are, that's never what they've been! And why the hell would a Klingon have been part of the Maquis anyway? Admittedly, they did come up with some decent stuff for her toward the end of the series when they approached her issues with her father. Unfortunately it was too little too late.

Kes: A fantastic character that was sadly underutilized. They came up with something quite clever for her when they started to introduce her spooky mind powers and her precognition; there was all kinds of cool stuff they could've done with that given more time. Unfortunately, Rick Berman is a knob and thought the character was too hard to write for, so he gave Jennifer Lien the boot.

Seven: Absolutely one of the better characters of the series. Like I said above, in casting Jeri Ryan, the show-runners hit a home run without even knowing what they were doing. This catsuited ex-Borg proved to be far far more than just a sexbot, she ended up being one of the most intriguing characters of the entire series. It's a bit aggravating that she became part of the 'Star Trek: Janeway, Seven and the Doctor' problem, but there's worse things that could have happened.

Neelix: Neelix Neelix Neelix, what to say about Neelix. He bears the distinction, perhaps unfortunately, of being one of the most annoying characters in Star Trek history in my books. But he also happens to be portrayed by one of the most talented actors on the show. Ethan Philips really did a phenomenal job with the character, considering what he had to work with. Neelix himself had an interesting everyman quality about him that lent well to a broad variety of stories and story possibilities. These weren't always executed well, but I think the writers at least recognized that they had a valuable tool in his character.

Tuvok: I think maybe he's best described as one of the hidden gems of the series. It seems that most of the time the writers were only interested in him as bridge wallpaper, there to rattle off technobabble in a crisis. It was rare for them to utilize Tim Russ' not inconsiderable acting chops, which were quite apparent whenever they allowed him to perform out-of-character.

The Doctor: Possibly the best part of the series. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Robert Picardo was the best actor on the show, and it shows too. The writing staff obviously had no end of ideas for things to do with him, and I think that hurt the show overall (particularly with regards to the aforementioned 'Star Trek: Janeway, Seven and the Doctor' issue). But it also translated into some of the most interesting and compelling stories that were done in the entire run of the series.

Chakotay: Useless wallpaper. I think that the Chakotay/Robert Beltran problem is one that was a circle of self-destruction. The writers never bothered to do anything terribly interesting with the character, which pissed the actor off. He was vocally critical of this, and I think clearly 'checked out' from the role. In consequence, the writers never tried to do anything exciting with him, and so on in a vicious circle. Talk about a neutered character though; from captain of his own Maquis ship to first officer of a Starfleet ship, whose captain never once listens to his advice in seven years.

Janeway: Oh Captain Janeway. You are, without a doubt, the worst Captain in the history of both Star Trek and the fictional universe it portrays. It was only through the grace of having a writing staff who didn't want to upset the status quo that this woman wasn't removed from command and confined to a small cell for the remainder of their journey, multiple times throughout the run of the show. I could go on for days and days about how much I despise this character, but I'll cut it short here.

Now What?
One of the biggest stumbling blocks of Voyager and Endgame, at least for me, is how cavalier it is about things that would dramatically change things after they got home. Consider everything they've seen and collected during their journey, and how it would change any potential future Star Trek series.

Several crew members are left with a great deal of knowledge about the future, tempting fate for violation of the Temporal Prime Directive. They're in possession of 29th-century holography technology. They're in possession of quantum slipstream technology, as well as undoubtedly detailed scans of Borg transwarp technology (both from Dark Frontier and Endgame). They have not one but two ex-Borg crew members with vast knowledge of everything to do with the Borg. They have armour and shielding, as well as both medical and weapons technology from the 25th-century--not to mention a working understanding of what a 29th-century Borg drone's technology would be.

They've been to the birth of the universe itself, an entirely different dimension vis a vis fluidic space, and fiddled with time in ways that future cops had to intervene with.

This is game changing stuff. Having all this at their disposal would put the Federation in a position of power that couldn't be challenged for decades or centuries to come--if ever again. This is big, big stuff.

And as for "Admiral Janeway" come Star Trek Nemesis? Bull. If she hasn't been arrested by future authorities for what she did in Endgame, she belongs rotting in a cell for all the horrible command decisions she made while in the Delta Quadrant.

[Raw_Deal]

DS9 - Rocks and Shoals.

[nx01a]

Voyager: Post-Series Thoughts

Season 4 certainly was the show's best.

Endgame would have made far more sense if the Borg were on the verge of destroying the future Federation and Janeway went back in time to stop them. Didn't she care about any of the other crew members who died, just Seven? Why didn't she go back to Voyager's second day in the Delta Quadrant and give them all the future technology? The reason for her trip made no sense to me.

25th C weapons and medical tech? What episode's that from?

I was greatly annoyed with the photon torpedo situation. They set up an interesting problem and then forgot about it.

I would have loved to see the ship in a truly dire state for a long period, much like the post Azati Prime NX-01 or Voyager in Year of Hell. Instead, we got reset buttons to erase damage, and instant problems at the beginning of episodes that were solved at the end of them.

Kes, the Doctor and 7/9 were easily my favourite characters on the show.

It's sad that the crappy storytelling in VOY seasons 5-7 extended into ENT seasons 1-2. By the time they got out of those creative Badlands, Trek was already in TV's Delta Quadrant... and it'll take years to get back.

[Cold Fuzz]

VOY 7.23 "Homestead"
Well um..it started back in about season 5, but this episode made it official: Voyager is no longer adhering to the Stardate system established in TNG and followed through all of it and DS9. Traditionally, a Stardate of 54868 would be toward the end of the year, in keeping in line with it being near the end of the season as well. But we open here on the 315th anniversary of First Contact, which would place the beginning of this episode on April 5, 2378.

Ultimately though this is absolutely one of the highlights of the later seasons of the show. It's here that it becomes fully clear and apparent that the show is coming to an end. As much as he could be annoying, it was rather sad to see Neelix leave the ship after all this time. For seven years he'd made it his home, and after all that time he decides he'd rather settle here than continue with them to Earth.

I find it...a little questionable that Neelix couldn't find a home until he was back amongst his own people. There's something vaguely racially insensitive about that as a story element. But still, it's well-executed and sad to see Neelix's departure from the ship.

Homestead was probably my favorite episode in season 7. I've read that the cast and crew generally regard this episode as the show's "real" finale, especially with that great exit Neelix gets at the end of the episode walking towards the transporter room.

I don't think there's anything racially insensitive about Neelix finding a home among his own people. Since Talax was annexed by the Haakonian Order, Neelix eked out a lonely existence scrounging around for spare parts and trading. He lost his entire family due to the war and though he found Kes and the Voyager crew, I don't think he fit in that well. He was relegated to pots & pans and the occasional help with a trade negotiation but it didn't feel like he ever really fit in to me. If you think about it, Neelix has probably felt culturally isolated for his entire time on Voyager. If you count his post-war experiences and his time on Voyager, Neelix has essentially been living as an exile for maybe 10 years. It makes perfect sense to me that he would be able to build a new home for himself as a true leader among a group of wayward Talaxians.

The big question is, how the hell did a group of Talaxians end up 40,000 light-years away from their home system?

Season 4 certainly was the show's best.

Definitely. I think the stories were the most interesting during that season, thanks in no small part to encountering the Hirogen and the other interesting aliens they ended up encountering. Jeri Ryan's presence of course really made season 4 stand out.

I would have loved to see the ship in a truly dire state for a long period, much like the post Azati Prime NX-01 or Voyager in Year of Hell. Instead, we got reset buttons to erase damage, and instant problems at the beginning of episodes that were solved at the end of them.

As much as we would have liked to have seen that, Berman & Braga would never had gone with such a move. Those two were stalwart believers in a stand-alone episode format and I think this philosophy really hurt Voyager in the long run. DS9's contrasting format was one of its greatest strengths and they should have learned from this.

It's sad that the crappy storytelling in VOY seasons 5-7 extended into ENT seasons 1-2. By the time they got out of those creative Badlands, Trek was already in TV's Delta Quadrant... and it'll take years to get back.

Again, look to Berman & Braga. The whole status quo they tried to maintain was directly responsible for the bad ratings and bad storytelling. It's no coincidence that the Xindi crisis and the empire building in season 4 of ENT mirrored DS9's long-running storylines. B&B's stubbornness to cling to the stand-alone episode format I think killed ENT by boring the audience over seasons 1 & 2.